Pompeii
by Linzerj
Summary: Oroku Karai is still Hamato Miwa, just as Splinter is still Hamato Yoshi and Shredder is still Oroku Saki and both are her still her father no matter who she really is. -no longer a oneshot, now a set of connected (but not necessarily totally linear) oneshots set to Bastille's "Bad Blood" album-
1. pompeii

I should be finishing other stuff...oh well. I saw the episode and...and I needed to get it written.

Drabble, spoilers for "Wormquake" episode - it is available to watch fully on both the Nickelodeon website, and on iTunes. If you don't really care about spoilers, then go for it.

I do not own the TMNT or any related characters. They are the property of Eastman, Laird, and Nickelodeon.

* * *

**_Pompeii_**

Karai has been grateful that no active duties of late have involved the Turtles or...or _him_. Of course, since the Shredder was her father, her punishment for failure was not nearly as steep as that of Xever and Bradford... She'd been reduced to a normal ninja in terms of tasks, not allowed to lead any missions for a month and only allowed to leave for school and school-related events.

She was a sophomore, now, and so was April O'Neil and that fact had really, really begun to bug her. The semester change had brought with it a merciful study hall - or so she had thought. It turned out that April now also had a study hall...the same period as her.

And of course the red-head had recognized her, but knowing her place (or being terrified for her life) she had wisely stayed away. Or, well, she had, until her companion Irma began trying to strike up conversations with Karai.

Honestly, Karai liked Irma's dry humor and ability to spit out facts about virtually anything. The girl was unique, interesting, and unlike so many of the people at her school. Unfortunately being friends with Irma meant being..._civil_ with O'Neil.

(Honestly it wasn't that bad. When Irma was gone they used to have glaring contests, until April mentioned something about some kata or another and now Karai finally had another girl to talk to about being a kunoichi - even if that girl was her usual enemy in battle. Thankfully April never brought up Splinter, and if she did it was just to comment on a new move he had taught her; she never brought up the dreaded _father_ issue.)

As the days passed Karai wondered when she had become so much...softer. When her thirst for battle had finally started to be quenched. She wondered if this was the...the part of her that used to be (still was) Miwa.

She found she didn't really care.

* * *

If she was honest with herself, she didn't know why she still stayed with Oroku Saki some nights.

He was…_he_ was the monster he had painted to be Hamato Yoshi. _He_ was the one who killed her mother, killed Tang Shen, and _he_ was the one who ruined lives.

…But…she couldn't bring herself to hate him. Not really. Because in spite of everything, _he_ had been the one to raise her, nurture her, train her.

Of course Yoshi – Splinter – would have done the same for her, but perhaps he would have taught her to see the beauty in life instead of seeking never-ending vengeance as Saki – Shredder – did.

Karai's life had shattered, and it could never be the same again. Because while she was still Oroku Karai, daughter of Oroku Saki, she was still innately Hamato Miwa, daughter of Hamato Yoshi. The man she had called father for fifteen years had been the one to shred the life she could have had to pieces, but even the thought of the man she should call father filled her heart and soul with splinters.

The only constant in her life is Tang Shen, her mother, the one who loved her until her dying breath. Despite the world crumbling around her, she could still stare at that picture and know that someone in the world truly loved her all her life, no secrets, no heartbreak, no regrets.

* * *

The day the crucial moment comes – the day when she has to decide between Oroku and Hamato – she is not sure what she will choose. On the one hand, she does not want to leave the life she knows, and yet at the same time she wonders what else could be out there.

(She's not sure that living in a sewer with mutants is the best way to learn more about the world, but Splinter is kinder and more lenient than Shredder from what she has seen. She could probably get away with more defiance and individuality than she could now, at the very least.)

Karai will still talk casually with April when she sees the redhead at school, neither one daring to bring up the taboo subjects, and luckily she has not seen the girl or the Turtles on patrol in a long while.

Well…except for that one time. Leonardo had been alone, perhaps bringing up the rear of his brothers, when he spotted her. None of the Foot soldiers with her noticed, but blue eyes met light brown, and something, _something_ in Leonardo's eyes told her that no matter _what_ path she chose, Splinter (naïve, caring, understanding Splinter) would accept it no matter what.

The same could not be said about the Shredder.

And maybe that was the first step toward her ultimate decision.

* * *

_Oh where do we begin: the rubble or our sins? And the walls kept tumbling down into the city that we loved. Great clouds rolled over the hills bringing darkness from above. But if you close your eyes does it almost seem like you've been here before? And if you close your eyes does it almost seem like nothing's changed at all? Oh, how am I gonna be an optimist about this?_


	2. things we lost in the fire

A lovely review left by **The Prime Writer **encouraged me to extend this one-shot into an AU story. While this isn't exactly a linear story, with word of the upcoming episode "The Wrath of Tiger Claw" being where Karai truly learns what her true parentage is I thought I would start posting little drabbles revolving around her personal journey. When that episode airs, I'll definitely base future drabbles off of it.

Now I must also credit **hotmilkytea** of tumblr, known on this site as **teawithmilk**, for giving me the idea of using the rest of Bastille's "Bad Blood" album for chapters. She posted on her tumblr the song _Icarus_, with a line or two about how it fit Karai's character so perfectly, and then I sat down and listened to the whole album and decided to just use it all because it is _so perfect_. So there'll be a total of 15 chapters when I'm done. After that I'll possibly extend it if I find other Bastille songs that fit, but they can only be Bastille songs just to keep the theme.

Enough of my rambling. Here we go...

* * *

_Things We Lost in the Fire_

Karai is well aware that her mother was lost to a fire.

The details of it, of course, are coming to light and changing in her mind's eye.

She studies the picture of Tang Shen, torn at the edges and missing the other half of the arm just barely visible; the arm she now knows belongs to Hamato Yoshi, not Oroku Saki. That fire took more from her than the Shredder; as the cause of it all, he doesn't even deserve sympathy for it anymore.

She wonders what Splinter went through, thinking that she, too, was lost in the fire. Then she shakes her head quickly; she's not ready to venture into that train of thought quite yet.

But she grips the picture tightly as she sits in her room and wonders how she should break it to Oroku Saki that she knows, that she has found the skeletons in his closet and that she will no longer stand for it.

He lied to her, and she lost herself that day he plucked her from the fire. She needs to regain her old spirit, she decides, if she ever wants to be whole.

* * *

Karai looks at old pictures of her and her father that sit upon a sacred little mantle in the great room of Oroku's New York skyscraper. They were few and far between, and often just formal pictures, but she remembers the few tender moments they shared, the times he taught her how to learn from her mistakes, the times he helped her up when she fell, the times he showed her the way to greatness.

She tenderly touches the pictures, and she can feel tears trying to rise but she shoves them down. This is not a weakness, she tells herself. This is just...necessary. She needs to be free. She doesn't belong here, not really. Not really.

She's not sure exactly what comes now, but whatever she does next, things will never be the same again.

* * *

_Things that we lost to the flames – things that we'll never see again – all that we've amassed sits before us, shattered into ash. …Do you understand that we will never be the same again? The future's in our hands and we will never be the same again… These are the things, the things we lost, the things we lost in the fire, fire, fire…. Flames – they licked the walls; tenderly they turned to dust all that I adore._


	3. bad blood

_Bad Blood_

Once upon a time, Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Saki were best friends. They became hated enemies over a girl they couldn't let alone.

They were like brothers, once, and they had each other's backs as they made their way up the ranks to master ninjas. Tang Shen, the girl with Chinese parents, joined their dojo relatively late, but she already knew so much and impressed everyone with her knowledge and skill.

At first, it was friendly competition. They thought that maybe, they'd luck out and she wouldn't like either of them, or one of them would find she wasn't quite right for him. But that was not the case.

She liked Yoshi best. And Oroku Saki did not deal well with rejection and apparent betrayal of friendship.

Thus started the bad blood between the Hamato and Oroku clans.

* * *

Karai just wants it all to end, now.

It's so many years after the fact, and Tang Shen is dead and gone. Splinter seems to be okay with it, though last she saw of him he was distraught over her being with Saki, still thinking he was her true father.

She's doubting it now, of course. But she needs the concrete proof before she makes a final decision.

(She knows that the turtles are right, though. Leonardo and Michelangelo couldn't tell a lie to save their lives. And Splinter…his emotions around her were so open, so unexpected, that it's all she can do to not confront Saki about it now.)

Either way, Shredder will not stop until he has destroyed Hamato Yoshi. Splinter, though, just wants peace between them, it seems. At the very least, he wants distance so he doesn't have to kill his old friend with her watching – judging.

Splinter would let the bad blood die in an instant, Karai realizes. Shredder is the one who keeps reopening old wounds in order to keep it flowing.

She wonders if it will ever end – and how she'll escape it's angry, ugly wrath when she finally does something about it.

* * *

_If we're only ever looking back we'll drive ourselves insane. As the friendship goes resentment grows, we will walk our different ways. But those are the days that bind us together, forever, and those little things define you forever, forever. All this bad blood here, won't you let it dry? It's been cold for years; won't you let it lie?_


	4. icarus

Cover image done by me and based on this song, which was very helpful in getting my muse for this story rolling in the first place. It's also the first one of these I had written which is why I've updated so quickly. Also despite the first three chapters going in order as they appear in the album, the rest are a mish-mash in terms of order.

* * *

_Icarus_

She read a myth in English class once – or was it history? – about the inventor Daedalus, who was trapped on an island that contained the Labyrinth and the Minotaur from one of those other myths with his young son Icarus. The inventor (_like Donatello_ had been her first thought when she thought of it just a while ago) built two sets of wings out of wax and feathers so that he and Icarus could fly off the island. He told Icarus not to fly too low or too high, because the ocean and sun would destroy his wings. But Icarus ignored his father's instructions and flew just a bit too high, too close to the sun, and the wax of his wings melted away.

He plummeted into the ocean and drowned, leaving Daedalus heartbroken and alone.

She is like Icarus in a way, Karai thinks that night as she sits perched on her bed. Only instead of falling, she burned, and instead of drowning, she breathes as a different person than she was before.

But now the process is repeating.

Her new wings are melting again and she's going to plummet into the sea if she isn't careful – or if someone isn't there to catch her and save her from her fall.

* * *

Karai puts on her armor like always, because she has to. She is still the Shredder's daughter in this instant, and she needs to keep up with her duties as such in order to keep her father from doubting her loyalties…until the time is right.

She's climbed so high up the clan ladder, though, and she when she looks down from the skyscrapers it's like she is looking down that ladder and down into the sea of nothingness in which she is going to drown if she isn't careful. (She doesn't want to fall, but she knows that it'll come sooner or later, and it's better to get it over with sooner than later, right?)

If she's able to make it to Splinter's little island of safety and seclusion, though, they might all survive this little catastrophe she's setting off. Maybe. (Hopefully.)

(Please.)

* * *

Whatever way she cuts it, she's going to fall.

She wants to be Karai and she wants to be Miwa, too. She just doesn't know how to go about this anymore. The wind is blowing her off her perch and she's going to melt in the sun and plummet into the cold, unforgiving ocean.

When she sees Leonardo again on a rooftop one night, she puts her facemask on and turns away and leaves in the span of about five seconds. She can't deal with him right now. At the very least, she's certain she doesn't want to be a deserter. (A traitor is a totally different story; a distraught and confused child is even better for her chances to be able to sneak out of this in the end, somehow.)

She just wants to be herself. If she has to fall to figure out _who_ she is...well, then, so be it.

* * *

_Your hands protect the flames from the wild winds around you. Icarus is flying too close to the sun. And Icarus' life, it has only just begun. And this is how it feels to take a fall. Icarus is flying toward an early grave. You put up your defenses when you leave; you leave because you're certain of who you want to be. You're putting up your armor when you leave and you leave because you're certain of who you want to be_


End file.
